A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never sit in

-Greek Proverb

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell

-George Orwell

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

- Will and Ariel Durant

It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society

-Jiddu Krishnamurti

Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reason. 

-Douglas Adams

None of us is as smart as all of us 

- Japanese proverb

“We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.

 - Chris Hedges

The elevation of appearance over substance, of celebrity over character, of short term gains over lasting achievement displays a poverty of ambition. It distracts you from what's truly important.

-Barack Obama

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

 - Mark Twain

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.
 
― Howard Zinn